A day in the McK life: Orlando

May 27, 2015 – Orlando, an Operations associate based in Hamburg, shares his typical day. He’s helping a large, multi-national manufacturer of medical devices improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its processes:

7:00am: Time to get ready for the day. While enjoying breakfast at my hotel, I review some of the latest productivity and quality statistics from the client’s monthly report and make mental notes about what we need to cover today based on the trends I see. Then, I drive to one of my client's manufacturing sites.

8:30am: I meet with the plant and quality control managers to review our progress. They are so glad there has been good progress. They ask me to join one of their team meetings to learn more about how their team works together.

10:00am: I attend the team session where the local supervisor explains the timeline and assigns people to be in charge of some of the different aspects of our improvement plan – including tracking key metrics and implementation of new processes. Wow, they are much more in control than they were just a few short weeks ago. It’s so amazing to see such fast progress. The team shares some good ideas to incorporate into a standard operating procedure (which is basically instructions for completing a certain step in the manufacturing process) that can be replicated at other plants.

11:00 am: I synthesize these suggestions and review them with the plant supervisor and quality manager. They agree to share it with their teams next week to gather input. Afterwards, the quality manager gives me a quick tour through the plant. I love seeing how a large variety of medical devices are produced in adherence with very tight quality standards.

12:30pm: Lunchtime. I make it to the cafeteria just before the queue gets too long. It’s sushi day, so the place gets packed in no time.

2:00pm: My McKinsey team facilitates a call with the client’s quality managers around the world. Today, our discussion gets a little intense since our analysis highlights additional processes that could benefit from a redesign. After we answer questions, they agree to pilot some proposed solutions next week.

4:30pm: After the call, the McKinsey engagement manager leads us in a problem solving session to outline ways for us to best support the pilots. We talk about what information will be most useful for the clients and decide on next steps, which we divide.

7:00pm: Dinner at our favorite Thai-restaurant with two of our clients. Most of us order the spicy green curry. No matter how many times we have it, we always love it.